‘Took an overdose of cocaine, filming had to be halted, I wrote a report to Whitney’s doctor n I was dismissed’ – Whitneys Bodyguard

Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston married in 1992 in a lavish ceremony at her home. Brown cheated on Houston frequently before they divorced in 2007, and Roberts believes it was a deliberate policy aimed at chipping away at her self-esteem.
‘I think that to make him feel less uncomfortable about his inadequacies, and the fact she was more successful than him, she went down to his level. That meant joining him in his habits. When they were out together, they were loud and brash. They used bad language and had arguments to attract attention. It was embarrassing.’

By contrast, Brown was involved in gang violence from an early age. He had become successful with the group New Edition before becoming a solo artist, but drug abuse, accusations of rape and other criminal activities dogged him throughout his career. 

Brown began to travel with Houston when she went on tour, and the pair would often hole themselves up in their hotel room with large quantities of alcohol.

‘Every two days, a bottle of brandy and a couple of crates of Heineken would go in, and then he’d be too ill to do anything for a day, and the following day he’d start the process again,’ says Roberts. 

‘The only time I saw any drugs until the very end of my time with her was before Brown was on the scene, when we arrived in Long Island for a show and Whitney’s maid Sylvia asked me to retrieve Whitney’s glasses case, which she’d left on the bus. It was full of weed.

‘But I knew they were taking drugs together, because everyone knew.

Wherever Brown went, chaos followed. During one visit to London, Roberts received an urgent call at 4am from Houston’s driver.

Brown was having a fight with Michael Houston on the Embankment. They’d been at Browns nightclub, and they’d apparently met a man who had £250,000 worth of cocaine with him and was trying to sell it.

 ‘The fight started because Bobby wanted to go back to the club and rob this man of the drugs and money. Michael was trying to stop him.

In 1992, Houston made The Bodyguard film. The similarities between the plot of the film and Roberts’s involvement with the star was a source of amusement to them both.

‘When I saw it, I was amazed,’ he says. ‘Whitney wasn’t acting; it was her life. I saw Kevin Costner doing everything for her that I did… obviously without the sex and the shooting! Whitney and I joked about it.

But one evening that spring, Roberts was in a restaurant in Atlanta having dinner with Whitney and her entourage.

‘As time went on, she started to cancel performances and events because she wasn’t well, and it was obvious why.’ He believes Houston willingly allowed herself to be dragged down by Brown. 

Roberts says: ‘Her behaviour was similar to battered wife syndrome, which I’d seen in my time in the police. He was jealous of her success, so he rubbed her face in his cheating, but she forgave him every possible indiscretion. I just couldn’t understand it. And it ate away at her.’ As Whitney later admitted: ‘He was too promiscuous, dragging dirt into my home. It disturbed me.’

Once, she was about to go on-stage at a big open-air concert in Lexington, Kentucky, when she decided to call Brown in Atlanta.

A woman answered the phone, so immediately, she wanted to fly to Atlanta to find out what he was doing,’ says Roberts. ‘The crowds were already arriving, but she cancelled the show. We had to find a doctor to say she had lost her voice, and then arrange a private jet.

‘We flew to Atlanta, and when we arrived, Whitney and Brown had a furious argument. Fifteen minutes later, they were having sex. That’s the way it always was.

‘He and I were alone together in a bar one night in Germany, and he was telling me he’d changed and become a Muslim. But that evening, he left with two prostitutes. He tried to offer one to me.’

Houston and Brown have admitted that it was around the time of The Bodyguard that they began to take drugs together every day, often cocaine-laced cannabis joints. Bobbi Kristina was born the following year, in 1993, and Roberts was dismayed by the arrangements her parents made for her care and concerned about the background of some of the characters trusted to look after the toddler. 

‘Whitney and Bobby bought Bobbi Kristina diamond ear-rings worth $20,000, information that appeared in the press, so I was very worried about her safety. I suggested to Bobby that they take them out of her ears, but because I’d suggested it, he refused.

He knew I disliked him intensely and it was mutual.’  By the time Houston filmed the movie Waiting To Exhale in 1995, her drug-taking had begun to have a serious impact on her health. 

‘She took an overdose of cocaine, and filming had to be halted for a week,’ he says. ‘Her throat doctor told me that he was giving her eight months to stop the habit or she’d never be able to sing again.

‘I was horrified, but shortly afterwards, we flew to Brunei so she could sing at the Sultan’s niece’s 18th birthday party. She croaked her way through her greatest hits. I was disgusted, and she knew it.

‘I went home and wrote a report on what the doctor had told me and sent it to her lawyers. A week later, I was told that she would no longer be travelling internationally so my services were no longer needed.’

Roberts never heard from Houston again, and went back to running his investigations and security business. In 2010, he moved to Miami. Over the years, he watched Houston’s decline with a sense of sad inevitability.

‘I wasn’t surprised when she died I was just surprised by how long she lived. I like to think it wouldn’t have happened on my watch.’

Of Brown, who has married again and still works with his soul group New Edition, Roberts said: ‘Those around her failed her. With Bobbi Kristina so close to dying, too, I wonder if he feels guilt for the way he’s behaved. He should.’


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